PS3 Hacked via USB Dongle 337
dlove67 writes "PSX-scene.com reports that the first PS3 modchip has been tested and confirmed to be working. Running off of a USB dongle, it appears to be relatively user friendly and claims to not void your warranty. Online gameplay works (at least for the time being). It's been a long time coming; cheers to the PS Jailbreak Guys." The video is attached below if you're curious. Can't help but point out that this wouldn't have happened if Sony hadn't decided to yank the Boot Other OS option.
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:3, Informative)
This is the exact reason that I refused to buy a PS3. When the "Other OS" option was not just removed from the Slims, but removed from existing machines as a mandatory upgrade, that made the platform a no-go.
You don't need a closed platform to deal with wallhackers and aimbots. Steam runs on a ton of PCs, and VAC catches and bans forever a crapload of people daily who attempt to try this stuff. Similar with WoW. Blizzard's Warden has evolved to a point where only the gold farmers who have hundreds of thousands of accounts [1] are continuously doing hacks, and that is because account loss for them is no consideration.
[1]: A lot of gold sellers get the accounts when suckers buy gold and pay with a credit card. Then they hand the CC# and info to another organization who just charges the credit card 5-10 times and create a bunch of paid accounts. Since they are offshore, PCI-DSS is not an issue, nor if there is ever a link found, there would be any criminal penalties applied.
Re:What has this to do with sony yanking linux? (Score:5, Informative)
the recent push to "crack" the PS3 OS was due to the removal of that function, which Sony did to try to prevent the cracking of their OS. Oh, the circular eddies of irony that feed our world :D
Re:What has this to do with sony yanking linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not hard for sony to fix this.... (Score:1, Informative)
If you are creating your own USB device, you can easily set the hardware ID to whatever you want, or even let it be programmable (like in the FTDI chips).
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:4, Informative)
You realize the xbox 360 has a thriving indie game scene, right?
I am aware of Indie Games. However, I am also aware of these four issues:
What's the advantage of a console over a PC for people who develop or play indie games?
Re:How? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not hard for sony to fix this.... (Score:3, Informative)
There is nothing that stops people from creating USB devices that can rewrite their own ID similar to how there is nothing to stop you from using a different MAC.
If that is the only line of defense, economic incentives for the crackers will make sure you can buy a v2 with "valid" Sony ID or simply a changeable one.
Re:What has this to do with sony yanking linux? (Score:1, Informative)
The recent addition of all six PS3 Linux users to the effort probably had no effect.
Image for a second a peice of paper, there are two overlapping circles on it. One represents the people who want to run Linux on the PS3 and are trying to hax0r it. This circle is about the size of a quarter.
The other circle is for the people who want to pirate games and cheat. The diameter of this circle is roughly 50 meters.
Running Linux now is nothing more than a side effect. Removing the Other OS option didn't 'push' much because that majority of the actual effort was there before the OtherOS option disappeared.
If this was for Linux, 'backup functionality' wouldn't be one of the first features on the thing.
You guys really need to get some perspective and soda. You REALLY need to realize that not everyone drools over Linux the same way you guys do, there are in fact people in the world who do this for practical reasons. Not just so the can have a white on black text console on their TV screen which their uneducated friends find impressive.
That is a debug unit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:2, Informative)
It wasn't mandatory, but it did force you to choose between advertised features that were never even implied as being mutually exclusive.
If the update had no negative effects other than removing OtherOS then there wouldn't have been a lawsuit (ongoing?) because the choice would be as simple as you've stated.
Debug Console (Score:3, Informative)
This was done on a Debug Console. If you look at 0:44 on the video, you can see the "Install Packages..." option at the top of the list in the XMB. ...so in other words, nothing unusual, folks. This type of thing could always be done on a Debug Console...
Re:What has this to do with sony yanking linux? (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the only reason that people by these mod chips is to play burned games. To claim this has anything to do with homebrew or being able to install Linux is naïveté to the highest degree.
Because there's no way someone would modchip a Wii (before software homebrew was refined to its current pretty-damn-easy standard) in order to plug a mass-storage USB device in and use their console as both a home media center and a game machine. That could never, ever happen. It's inconceivable.
Oh, wait. A simple Google search returns a bunch of sites that want to sell you the (free) homebrew software (in violation of copyright--yes, Team Twiizers' homebrew software is original, not stolen from Nintendo, so they technically hold copyright), and they tout being able to use your Wii to play back pretty much any type of video or sound file VLC can understand. You lose. Player 1 insert coin.
Re:How? (Score:3, Informative)
Every console sent to be repaired will have their save games erased.
That is already the case and always has been. Sony do not repair the units, they just send you a refurbished unit with no effort to salvage your data. Herein lies a sticky issue. Those of us with the good original fat models are in for problems when they fail. Sony have run out of them and will send a later model. Sounds good? Not when you consider the original machines had back compatibility, SACD support, more card slots etc, that the new models do not. The PS3 is a machine that gets less functionality with each incarnation.
Firmware Version: v3.41 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:3, Informative)
The whole reason I bought a PS3 was because it was a closed platform, and because it was a closed platform, it was harder to hack the games. I like playing FPS games and they are absolutely ruined as soon as you have to deal with wallhacks and aimbots. Will this new hack open the door to programs like that?
Actually, being a closed platform doesn't have a whole lot to do with running wallhacks and aimbots.
Normally your server has some kind of basic validation to make sure the software you're running is the software it expects. This is why many games require you to have the latest patch before joining a server. You don't generally modify the executable itself to create a wallhack or aimbot. Normally that's done with a second utility running simultaneously - a mod or an add-on the the game, basically.
Typically a console has relatively little support for modding. Typically a console is only capable of running a single executable at a time. And even if you've cracked a PS3 to allow you to play pirated games or boot other OSes, you're probably stuck running a single game at a time with very little mod support and limited ability to run other utilities simultaneously.
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:4, Informative)
It's generally referred to as the JTAG hack. It requires minor soldering and modification of the 360. It does not work on every revision of the 360 currently. Frankly, if you are not savvy enough to find the info with Google, you are better off not bothering or paying someone else to do it.
Re:What has this to do with sony yanking linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:4, Informative)
Load a "legit" game and pull the disc out, and stick in your burned copy of another game, and voila! The burned copy runs. You never even needed a modchip to begin with.
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't care how great you think you are at CoD:MW2 on the XBox360; I will destroy you with a keyboard and mouse.
The only way I can equate the experience between going from K&M input in a PC to gamepad on a console is to unplug the mouse and use the arrow keys for X and Y axis control. It's just painful.
Re:What does this mean for cheats/aimbots? (Score:3, Informative)
http://marcansoft.com/transf/mist_table.png [marcansoft.com]
That's what OtherOS was, indeed.
Re:What has this to do with sony yanking linux? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Tag article slashvertisement (Score:3, Informative)
VERY similar. I've done the same thing to my TomTom so I could drop in map updates since my particular model doesn't work with the mapshare community.
This is a fallback from the PS3 debug systems, which required a hardware key. The data trace has a nearly direct pathway to the hypervisor, thus making it the most vulnerable route to attack.
Re:Tag parent fail (Score:3, Informative)
The over-current trick has been used in MANY systems to bypass hardware restrictions by forcing it into a failure mode for repair. From Tom-Tom devices, to the original XBox console, now it's been used on the PS3.
Here's your requested information. I gave you more than you needed so you could grab a PS3 for yourself, pop out the mobo, flip it over, and start hacking for yourself so maybe you can help us figure out WTF these other UNKs are.
http://www.interfacebus.com/ps3-connector-pinouts.html [interfacebus.com]